Parking a vehicle correctly can be a difficult challenge for certain drivers. In some instances, such parking requires maneuvering a vehicle to park it between two other vehicles that are parked in an end-to-end manner (e.g., cars that are parallel parked along a curb), which is commonly referred to as parallel parking. In other instances, such parking requires maneuvering a vehicle to park it between two other vehicles that are parked in a side-by-side manner (e.g., cars that are in a typical parking lot), which is commonly referred to as perpendicular parking. Factors that can contribute to and/or complicate such parking maneuvers include, but are not limited to, the size of the car being parked, the mobility of the vehicle being parked (e.g., turning radius), the spaces between the parked cars, a driver's inherent skill at performing such parking maneuvers, and the like.
Active park assist is a feature of a vehicle that assists a driver of the vehicle with or solely performs operations for maneuvering the vehicle into a parallel parking location or perpendicular parking location. Performing vehicle maneuvers for assisting with parallel parking and perpendicular parking of the vehicle requires a reliable and accurate source of information indicating a present direction that the vehicle is travelling. The direction indication information is important for accurately and reliably determining a position of the vehicle relative to a target parking space. However, it is known that use of gear position (e.g., as indicated by a transmission gear selector) is insufficient because the vehicle may be moving in a direction opposite to the gear position such as when the vehicle is in a reverse gear, but is rolling in the forward direction. Accordingly, with regard to active parking assist functionality, configuring a vehicle for allowing direction indication information to be determined in a manner that is robust yet cost effective is desirable.